Posted
by
timothyon Tuesday January 24, 2012 @12:17PM
from the virtualbox-actualbox dept.

ReeceTarbert writes "VirtualBSD 9.0 is a desktop-ready FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE built around the XFCE Desktop Environment for good aesthetics and usability, and is distributed as a VMware appliance (that can also be made to work with VirtualBox) so even non techies can be up and running in minutes. The most common applications, plugins and multimedia codecs are ready since the first boot and chances are that you'll find VirtualBSD very functional right out of the box. However, it should be noted that VirtualBSD is more a technology demonstrator than a fully fledged distribution, therefore is squarely aimed at people that heard about FreeBSD but have never tried it, didn't have enough time
to build the system from scratch, or have since moved to a different OS but still need their FreeBSD fix from time to time."

Oh it gains users, they just don't know they're using BSD. BSD license instead of GPL means its an anti-social community, where you don't have to contribute back, which is why its much smaller and weaker than the GPL community.

Depends on who you ask.

To some, the BSD people are giving you more freedom with their software than the GPL does... I'm free to build a commercial application using BSD software and not have to release my proprietary changes. In much the same way, Apache has provided a vast library of code which can be used in the same way -- you don't need to give your changes back.

There is arguments for both licenses... but having worked on commercial software which used the Berkeley DB, it is sometimes nice to have things which are less restrictive. It allows you to build something

BSD isn't about hating the idea of helping others... it just doesn't confer on your benefactors the need to do the same thing.

I think GPL has its place, and I think the permissive licenses like Apache and BSD have their place... because the permissive ones provide the ability to snag some high quality, open implementations without needing to sign up for the entire philosophical treatise that GPL advocates insist on. Not everybody wants that... and if people want to, they should be able to release code which has no such strings attached.

OK, Its true I have been using BSD for over 30 years... but name any other OS you would actually WANT to use for 30 years?

Or are you a Unity lover?

"If it ain't broke don't fix it" sounds like a very good reason to me. Sure, you can have UnityBuntu - I am not stopping you (although the usability issues might). The reality is that with *BSD, you have to install the software you want. Isnt that just a million time better than having your system bloated with stuff you don't want, and cant even find out what it does (how do you know it isn't written by hackers.ru?). No one is forcing YOU to use *BSD, and I agree OpenBSD is not very user friendly), but some of us what a reliable system that we can use to exploit the benefits of 30 years of learning.

I've never seen BSD as something that really attracts new users so much as retains existing ones.

Oh it gains users, they just don't know they're using BSD. BSD license instead of GPL means its an anti-social community, where you don't have to contribute back, which is why its much smaller and weaker than the GPL community. But if legal demands that your embedded whatchamacallit be distributed under the BSD instead of GPL then that's how it goes. Usually the best reason you'd "need" the BSD license if you can't figure out a way to decouple a trade secret from the modified source code. The worst reason would be you're violating software patents, know it, and hope that not releasing the source will keep it quiet. Sometimes there's weird philosophical stuff like hating the idea of helping others.

There is a strange "security thru psuedo-obscurity" thing going on too, since BSD is not overly popular.

Well, until now, BSD never had problems offering GPLed software, like GCC & so on. However, after the software on most GNU packages had been changed to GPLv3, we've seen them react. In FreeBSD 9, they've replaced GCC w/ LLVM due to this license issue, aside from the extra features that LLVM offers. People who previously did not have problems w/ GPLv1 & v2 are having problems now. In fact, since Linux is not going to go GPLv3, don't be surprised if @ some point, Linux too decides to replace GNU userland w/ something else.

There is a good argument for open source, but that involves companies and organizations having the freedom to pick a license of their choice, and fine tune it to how open they want to make it for it to have all the advantages of open source vs how closed they want to make it to protect the income of those who worked to make that software in the first place. B'cos ultimately what makes or breaks a software package is not the 'community', but people who earn their livelihood by working on that package.